Finding your way home
by MLaw
Summary: 'Home', a word that means much, especially at Christmas. There are those who don't have a home, per se, making them feel a bit lost during the holidays. This is a brief tale of discovery, about an U.N.C.L.E. agent at last finding a home... Prompted by the Trans-Siberian recording:'Find our way home" on You-Tube #21 in the Illya series. Now in chronological order.


Snow was falling as it often did this time of year, though not as much as Illya Kuryakin had been accustomed to while growing up in the Soviet Union. For the first eight years of his life, he lived in a small family dacha outside of Kyiv with his mother, and father, his babushka, as well as his three brothers and baby sister, but they and the dacha were no more….now he had no real home.

In the years before the Great Patriotic War life had been good, in spite of the few ups and downs it had thrown the way of the Kuryakin family. Yet the last hand dealt them by fate was the hardest and most final of burdens to bear for one young boy.

The death of his entire family, time spent in a concentration camp and surviving all that as well as the war, only to be shipped off to a hell-hole of an orphanage in Moskva had hardened his heart.

The happy memories of his childhood were driven out of him little by little, though not the lessons he'd been taught by his parents, grandmother and Uncle Vanya. It was those lessons that had helped him survive into his adulthood.

He made the pursuit of knowledge his substitute for all the love and attention that had been taken from him. Books became his friends, his family in essence.

Illya devoted himself to that family with a passion, even denying himself friends, well that was mostly because of the profession for which he'd been carefully chosen...the life of a Soviet spy. It wasn't safe to have friends, for them as well as for himself.

His sponsor, a Colonel named Viktor Karkoff, fancied himself a substitute father to the blond boy with the big blue and often sad eyes, but he was sorely mistaken. The lad tolerated him at best, playing the game when he had to in order to humor the man.

Illya survived on his wits alone with little help or guidance from Victor. The only positive thing the man had done for him was to see that he had a good education. There was no sense of belonging with Victor, no 'home for the holidays'...no holidays at all for that matter.

Kuryakin, steeling himself when these days rolled around on the calendar, reminded himself he was a pragmatist and didn't need such things. He locked away his emotions, compartmentalizing them and to those around him he developed the reputation of being a smart but cold-hearted loner. Now and then he wondered if he'd squandered being happy by building a wall around himself. This was one of those times...

In reality he had a very warm heart, he had a conscience and a soft spot deep down inside for others; those innocents who'd been dealt a bad hand by life. He dared not show that lest his masters see it and deem him weak. Weaklings has a way of ending up in the blast furnaces at Sepakov.

Tonight though, as he walked the snow covered streets of Marseille this Russian found himself feeling sorry for himself. Illya didn't know why, as it was Christmas Eve, December 24th and not the Russian Christmas, though either date had little to no meaning for him after so many years.

He shivered as a cold blast of air blew right through his inadequate woolen jacket, he was dressed in a tuxedo as he had intended to go to the ballet, but changed his mind, finding himself feeling a bit down.

His mood had worsened; perhaps it had been the mistake he'd made of looking through the windows along the street; filled with warmth, candles, brightly colored lights strung on Christmas trees within and families with gaily wrapped packages being passed to one another.

Illya felt a hollowness in him as he was always on the outside looking in. It was an emptiness, a want that would never be fulfilled. He's spent most of his adult life searching, collecting, making mistakes, committing transgressions, forgetting and squandering so much as he ploughed forward, devoting himself to duty while he tried to do good. What did he have to show in the end but being alone with, what... regrets?

Still something urged him to moved on, believing what he always thought he knew to be right and to do the right thing; still with 'the masters' in one form another breathing down his neck, telling him what he should think and how he should act. He had traded one for another when moving to the Command, though Waverly was in no way like his superiors in GRU. Illya had to admit, there was freedom in his life now and he liked it.

No matter, he continued to play the game, all the while holding on to what little memories he had, but even those he hid away from others, not wanting pity...never pity for the harsh life he'd been dealt.

Watching as his breath was suspended in the cold air; he wished secretly he could find his way home, not to Russia but to that little red dacha and the loving family that once lived there.

Family...it was a precious word and perhaps more so this time when the year was leaving. So many, he suspected were trying to find their way home in the real sense. At least they had a home to which they could go.

He didn't think of his apartment in New York as a home; it was just a place to sleep and keep his few belongings and nothing more. He was there very little as of late and the only thing he did miss about it was his bed.

Illya looked up, seeing a dark figure approaching him along the sidewalk, and as they both reached the halo of light beneath the street lamp, the two men greeted each other.

"Napoleon," he called.

"So I finally found you," Solo flashed a wide grin. "It's almost Christmas, I was afraid…"

"I understand. I was lost in my thoughts...melancholia perhaps and so now you have found me."

"Merry Christmas," Solo suddenly reached out his hand, and when Illya took it, he pulled the Russian into a bear hug.

"_S Rozhdestvom Khristovym moy drug_Merry Christmas my friend,"_ Illya blurted out; it was a phrase he hadn't said in a very long time. Suddenly it felt good to speak the words and the emotion of the moment filled him. Perhaps it had to do with the person to whom he was speaking?

The two separated; Napoleon taking note his partner's cheek was wet.

"Getting a bit teary eyed buddy?"

'No...no. It is just the snow," he wiped his face with his sleeve.

"Okay pal, just the snow. Now let's go. I made reservations tonight for the two of us at a wonderful restaurant. The owner is a friend and the place is all ours. We're having roast goose with all the trimmings...and a few Russian delicacies just for you, along with an impromptu jazz quartet that promised to stop by to give us some Yuletide entertainment."

"Really? No women involved?" Kuryakin was completely taken aback.

"I do not know what to say...but Napoleon you do understand I do not celebrate Christmas."

Solo laughed. "Nope no women, no double dating for once, just me and my best friend. Though it won't be a 'holy supper' with twelve courses, I think the menu will make a man of your appetites quite satisfied, for whatever reason you choose. Celebrating Christmas, friendship...doesn't matter. I just feel like spending the evening with my partner."

Though in truth, it did matter that it was Christmas to Solo, Illya understood this and he appreciated his partner's white lie, graciously accepting it.

Napoleon suspected deep down inside Illya wanted to join in the festivities this time of year, but for whatever reason, something stopped him. It wasn't hard to see the longing in the Russian's eyes, though Illya would deny it. He was alone, and no one should be by themselves, especially at Christmas, and Solo was determined his friend wouldn't be.

They continued walking side by side in the falling snow when silence of the city was broken in the distance by a church bell ringing its deep resonant tones. It was hypnotic, it was so Christmas.

The near perfect moment was broken when a taxi-cab came lumbering down the quiet street, and Solo, resorting to being very American, hailed it with a loud two-fingered whistle.

"_Où messieurs_where to gentlemen_?" The driver asked, opening the window after he pulled to a stop; his accent obviously that of an American, most likely an ex-pat.

Napoleon answered, giving him the address to which the driver responded.

"_Meilleur bouillabaisse à Marseille monsieur_best bouillabaisse in Marseille sir!"_

"Good to know," Napoleon said in English.

"Good to hear a bit of the old lingo now and then." The man apparently never left France after the war and remained in here, marrying his sweetheart.

As the cab dropped them off curbside to the Chez Bonheur in Vallon des Auffes, a bistro having a beautiful view of the nearby bridge and the water beneath it, alive with color from twinkling Christmas lights and landscape reflected in a gentle aquatic dance. The bateau mouche were still for the evening, moored securely to the walls lining the river.

When Napoleon tried to pay the cabbie, he was refused.

"Nah, think of it as a Merry Christmas from one Yank to another.

"Thank you, Napoleon said." Why don't you find your way home to that wife of yours."

"That's a good idea buddy, no more wandering tonight for me, Merry Christmas to you both. Joyeux Noël," the driver waved as he drove off into the snow filled night.

Illya had remained silent the whole time, but upon hearing what Napoleon had said, he nodded in agreement.

Yes it was important to find your way home, and with Solo he realized it was now possible. Napoleon was his refuge. It was a different kind of home to what he'd longed for, but home none the less, and family...

Illya had a brother again with his partner and that perhaps was the greatest Christmas gift he had ever received.

As they stepped inside, waiting by the bar to be seated, the tuxedoed barman handed them each a glass of champagne.

_"Merci,_" Solo nodded."To the holidays tovarisch," Napoleon said, raising his glass.

"Better still my friend, to home and family. _Na zdorov'ya._" Illya half-smiled, an enigmatic show of emotion.

"And_ budem zdorov'ya_ to you…_.moy brat,_" Napoleon replied, feeling as though a burden had somehow been lifted from his friend's shoulders, and perhaps his as well.

.

(Link to the prompt by the TransSiberian Orchestra: watch?v=AGPf3F3RCdY&amp;spfreload=10)


End file.
